Like the Dust
by Aradia17
Summary: When Jessie Bannon was abducted and never found, her loss tore the Quest family apart. Three years later, she returns home, but the miracle of her homecoming may be more difficult than any of them imagined. Will their love for each other be enough to heal the wounds of time, or is the damage too severe? Eventually J/J; will be novel-length.
1. Resurrection

**A/N:** This is a story that has been a very long time coming. I first started writing it years ago and never finished, but unlike many ideas that never fully panned out, this one has plagued my thoughts consistently ever since. For some reason, I always came back to it, adding and changing things, only to ultimately abandon it again. I would like to think I'm back for good this time and planning to see this through to the end!

I realize the JQ fandom is more or less a ghost town these days, but no matter how old I get, these characters have always held a special place in my heart. Maybe there is no one left out there to even bother reading this, but if you _are_ there and actually _do_ take the time to read, you are wonderful and I appreciate you! Please review, I would love feedback and it would be a great motivation to finish up what will ultimately end up being a novel-length story.

Without further rambling, I give you. . . .

**Like the Dust**

_Chapter 1  
__Resurrection_

It was a vicious winter's day along the coast of Maine. Half a foot of snow already blanketed the ground and the clouds were moving in again, a gray sheet that seemed to stretch infinitely in every direction. The trees rocked back and forth in a sea of wind as the ocean waves crashed violently upon the beach. The streets of Rockport were uncharacteristically quiet and empty for a Sunday, most people having chosen to hibernate away from the brewing storm.

As usual, the Quest family was the exception to the rule. Dr. Benton Quest had set out on a roadtrip to Portland, braving the adverse conditions with little more than a wave of his hand and the last-minute grab of a raincoat. He had a meeting that had been scheduled months ago with Dr. Nathaniel Gilmore, the director of a prestigious scientific research center based in Italy. Any attempt made to dissuade him from making the drive was met with a long explanation of all the ways an alliance with Dr. Gilmore would help Quest Enterprises, and the rest of the family eventually caved in.

Jonny Quest, Benton's sixteen year old son, had tickets to a basketball game between two high-ranking local teams, and since the game had not been suspended, neither had his attendence plans. Hadji Singh, Benton's adopted Indian son, was originally supposed to go with Jonny to the game. Instead, without offering an explanation, he had changed his mind at the last minute; the eighteen year old was now bound for a movie and dinner date with a local girl that Benton had never so much as heard about before. He had the impression that it was Jonny's doing, but said nothing because Hadji had not protested.

With the three of them out and about, Race Bannon was the only one left in the Quest Compound on that dark and gusty afternoon. Benton had invited him to come along, but in the end, Race had decided that listening to two scientists talk about abstract theories that he didn't fully understand was not his idea of a good time. In the end, he had opted for an afternoon of solitude, which was a rare thing around the compound - so rare, in fact, that Race did not know what to do with himself.

After a couple of hours spent updating and inspecting the computer and security systems, Race made himself a sandwich, fed Bandit, and settled down to watch a little television before the storm inevitably knocked out the cable. The storm had begun again; the temperature had risen just enough to turn the snow to rain, just as violent and heavy as anticipated. It was still far too cold for thunder or lightning, and the loud rain sounded lonely to his ears.

Sighing, he settled into the couch cushions. Bandit hopped up beside him and laid down and Race smiled faintly. Bandit was Jonny's dog, tried and true and as loyal as could be. He was friendly with all of them, but never expressed to anyone the kind of affection Jonny received. Of course, there had been a time when Jessie had been almost equal to Jonny in Bandit's eyes . . .

Race shut his mind off, forcing away the painful thoughts that were trying to creep back in. It was a skill he had become very good at. Focusing on his immediate surroundigns, he scratched the dog's ears and gave him a bite of his sandwich. "You never did like storms, did you, boy?" he muttered to the bull dog.

It was peaceful for a good half an hour as Race absentmindedly took in the repetitive Christmas specials that had plagued the television channels for weeks now, getting ever more frequent as the holiday drew closer. When the electrical system finally shut down, it happened without a bang or a flash; one moment the television was on, bathing man and dog in gentle blue light, and the next it was off along with all the rest of the lights in the house.

"Damn it," Race swore, but there was no heat behind his words. He was used to this, and his reaction was based more out of habit than actual annoyance. "IRIS, institue backup electrical systems."

He frowned when his order went unanswered. Perhaps he had tweaked with IRIS's settings too much earlier . . . or perhaps with all the recent blackouts, they had used up the automatic backup energy reserves. If that were the case, he would need to manually initiate the final backup electric server from the basement.

He pushed himself up and grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen, muttering at how dark the clouds made the day for not even five in the evening. The rain pounded in his ears like thunder as he marched down the stairs. It took him five minutes to fiddle with the switches and remember the exact sequence to trigger the final generator, but at last he got it. He heard the hum of electricity buzzing to life again, and IRIS's soft voice suddenly spoke.

"UNIDENTIFIED STRANGER AT FRONT DOOR."

Race swore again, this time with more passion. Clearly, IRIS had been down at just the right moment for this stranger to make their way through the front gates unnoticed, otherwise he would have gotten a warning message as soon as they set foot on the property. Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, he wondered if this was more than mere coincidence.

"IRIS, has the individual exhibited any hostility?" he demanded as he climbed the stairs quietly.

"NO HOSTILE BEHAVIOR DETECTED."

"Have they attempted to go beyond their clearance boundaries?"

"NO CLEARANCE BOUNDARIES BREACHED."

"Describe the stranger," Race ordered, pausing at the top of the stairs, wondering if he should grab a gun, just in case. Lord, he hated blackouts . . .

"TEENAGE FEMALE. FIVE FOOT SEVEN INCHES. 140 POUNDS. UNARMED."

Race frowned. "What on earth . . . ?" Had one of Jonny or Hadji's friends decided to wander up to the compound? It didn't seem likely. Most of the boys' close friends would be recognized by IRIS, at least by name, if not by granted access; and those that were not particularly close were unlikely to have braved such a storm to get here.

Finally, Race headed for the door, deciding against arming himself. He saw no point in frightening an innocent kid with a gun, and if IRIS's description was accurate, he could easily hold a unarmed teenage girl at bay if the situation came down to it.

"Disengage locking mechanism," he ordered IRIS upon reaching the door.

"DISENGAGED," her voice quoted back at him, though he knew this from the soft click of the locks undoing.

He opened the door, unsure of what to expect and braced for trouble. While most men would see no danger in such an alert, Race had learned through years of work in dangerous professions that he and his family could not afford to be lax in any way. Letting their guard down for even a moment could be enough to get someone killed. He had learned that lesson in the most painful of ways.

Night had almost completely fallen by now and he could see little more than the silhouette of a figure huddled before him. Behind him, he heard Bandit bark and whine softly.

"Hush, Bandit," he told the dog, then changed his tone of voice for the person on the porch. "Hold on a minute, I'll get the light." He fumbled blindly for the switch.

As the porch was illuminated, Race saw that the stranger fit IRIS's description perfectly. A girl stood huddled in the rain before him, wearing what looked like a man's shirt and baggy jeans, all soaked with water to the point of looking much darker than they must have really been. She was shivering, her arms folded across her chest, her face downcast, preventing Race from getting a good look at her. At first glance, she looked to have dark auburn hair, but he guessed that it would have been a deep red had it been dry.

"Hello, can I help you?" he asked.

The girl finally looked up and Race felt his mind explode.

It took him a long and breathless minute before he was convinced. She was so much older . . . taller, paler, more reserved. Her eyes were the same bright green, but there was a darkness in them. Her face had matured with age, but it was the same face - his daughter's face.

When she spoke, her voice was cautious and frightened, "D-Daddy?"

Race felt as though his knees might give way beneath him and he half-fell against the doorframe. "Jessie?" he whispered hoarsely, disbelieving.

She nodded slightly, searching his face for something, looking hopelessly lost and scared and still holding onto herself tightly as though she were own lifeline. She seemed to be waiting for some confirmation as much as he was.

Hesitantly, half expecting her vanish if he moved too suddenly, he stepped forward and reached out to her. He felt his hand connect with her arm, tangible and real and not at all an illusion, and his reverie was broken. He practically leaped forward and pulled her into his arms, embracing her tightly. She stiffened at his sudden hold on her and it took her a few moments before she relaxed and wrapped her arms loosely around him in return.

"My God, Jessie ... you're alive! You're back ..." he whispered disbelievingly.

He pulled back just enough to see her face, still gently holding onto her arms. He was afraid that if he let go of her she would disappear before his eyes.

"I can't believe you're here. . . . Are you okay? Are you hurt?" he asked shakily, looking her over. For the first time, he noticed that her lips were tinged with blue and she was shivering to the point that her teeth chattered. Her skin was icy to the touch. He needed to get her warmed up immediately.

"You're freezing, let's get you inside," he said gently, not waiting for her answer to his previous questions. She just nodded and allowed him to guide her off the porch and into the foyer.

Race kicked the door shut behind him and ordered IRIS to put the compound's heating system on high. Jessie just stood there, shivering violently and looking around herself with a puzzled expression, completely silent. Not only was she on the verge of hypothermia, she appeared to be in shock.

Years of compartmentalization and emergency response training going into effect, Race knelt in front of her, forcing himself to stay focused. "I'm going to go get you some dry clothes and a towel, okay, honey? I want you to wait right here. I'll be right back, I promise." It was several long seconds before she nodded.

He took the stairs three at a time, not wanting to let her out of his sight for any longer than he absolutely had to. Going immediately to the guest bedroom, he began rummaging through the tall set of drawers. Jessie had grown so much that he didn't think her own things would fit her anymore. Estella had taken to keeping some extra clothes at the compound because of how frequently she stayed with them during the months following Jessie's abduction. For a while, she had practically lived there with the rest of them, helping them follow every lead and track down every clue. The leads had dried up a long time ago, though, and it had been over a year since Estella's last visit, but Race knew that she still had some of her things stashed away. Just in case.

Race grabbed the first long-sleeved shirt he could find along with a pair of sweat pants that looked warm. On his way back down the stairs he snagged a large towel out of the linen closet and hurried back to where he had left his daughter. She stood exactly where he had left her, looking around herself at the hallway and appearing horribly lost in the place she was supposed to call home.

"Here," he said softly, handing her the towel. "Dry your hair some, we need to get your body temperature back up. Come in here, there's a fire going."

Race led her to the den, where ten minutes ago he'd sat watching television like any normal day, trying his best to temporarily forget about the daughter he thought he'd lost forever. And now here she was. Shaking off the feeling of overpowering disbelief, he steered her over to the fire. The TV was back on, offering mumbled and indistinct background noises. Bandit was perched on the couch, watching uncertainly. As Jessie began slowly drying herself with the towel, the dog hopped off the cushion and approached her cautiously, wagging his tail questioningly.

Jessie paused as the dog drew closer, watching him without any reaction. She was so quiet and seemed so numb; Race tried to push back the uneasy feeling that kept trying to creep forward from the back fo his mind. Finally, he knelt down beside the dog and started petting him.

"Jess, it's just Bandit," he said slowly, his voice neutral, keeping his eyes on her even though she still wouldn't meet his gaze. "He's not going to hurt you. You . . . remember Bandit?" He asked the last question cautiously. Three years was a long time, but it didn't seem likely that she would have forgotten something like this of her own accord.

She nodded slowly. "Yeah . . . I remember Bandit." It was only the second time she had spoken, but the tone of her voice unnerved him. There was no feeling, no inflection, no emotion. The longer he kept his reeling thoughts at bay, the greater the shadow of his fear became.

Bandit sat at her feet, wagging his tail. Hesitantly, Jessie reached out to him and patted his head. He licked her hand with feverish excitement for a few moments before she drew it away and continued drying herself.

"He certainly remembers you," Race observed softly. He sat on the arm of the chair, watching Jessie carefully. Now that she was marginally warmer, he realized that the paleness he had marked as signs of the onset of hypothermia was actually only a magnification of her normal skin tone. She was so thin; Race wondered how long it had been since she had last eaten.

"Come on, honey," he said softly, "you get yourself out of those clothes. I'm going to get you something hot to drink while you change."

Jessie took the clothes he handed her without looking at them. She nodded again and continued to dry her hair, which was now cut so that it hung just below her shoulders. After hesitating a moment, he forced himself to take his leave to the adjacent kitchen.

He went immediately to the sink and began filling the kettle, but as he stood gripping the counter, watching the water flow out of the faucet, he felt the enormity of the situation hit him with all the force of a wrecking ball.

_Three_ _years_! Three years since he had last seen her. Three years of searching, of desperation, of loss and grieving and being forced to accept that his only daughter was gone forever. And now here she was, three years older, so withdrawn and reserved, but _alive_! His hope for this moment had died some time ago, and now here she was.

All he wanted to do was hold her and refuse to let go. He had so many questions he wanted to ask her, so many things he wanted to say, but her withdrawal made him hold back. He still had no idea what she had been through, what had taken place in the last three years to cause the kind of reaction he was seeing in her now, and the last thing he wanted to do was frighten her.

Soft sounds of movement in the den pulled him back from his reverie and he realized that the kettle was more than full by now. He tried to pull it out from under the stream of scalding water, but the metal had heated up and it seared his hand upon contact.

"_Shit!" _he swore viciously, clenching his trembling hand and drawing in a deep breath. _Keep it together, Bannon!_ he snarled at himself silently. His head was a reeling mess by this point, but he had to keep functioning. Giving up on the kettle, he grabbed a mug, filled it with water, and threw it in the microwave.

Re-entering the den a couple of minutes later with the finished mug of cocoa, he saw that Jessie had moved over to sit on the lounge chair positioned closest to the fire. She wore her mother's clothes and he noticed that they fit her almost perfectly now. For the first time, Race wondered what Estella was going to do when she found out . . . Benton and Hadji . . . Jonny. . . .

Jessie looked over at him as he entered, seeming a bit more lucid than she had earlier. "I fit in Mom's clothes now." She sounded dazed as she ran her fingers along the fabric of the sleeve.

The bewilderment and innocence of her statement made Race's heart break. "Yeah," he choked out. "You do."

He handed her the mug of hot cocoa and she took it gingerly, wrapping her hands around the warm exterior and staring back into the flames of the fire. She had the towel hanging around her neck, and although she still shivered slightly, a lot of the color had returned to her skin.

Now that the momentary crisis had passed, Race found himself at a loss for what to say to her. She was so distant already . . . he feared that pressing her too much would make her withdraw even further.

Sipping at the mug her father had given her, Jessie seemed to choke on the liquid.

"Too hot?" Race asked with concern.

"Yes . . . no . . ." She shook her head and frowned, setting the mug on the table at her side. "I don't know, the sweetness . . . it tastes strange. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. You know I've never been hailed for my cooking skills," Race teased weakly. Jessie attempted a smile, but it only ended up looking pained. Her eyes wandered around the room, taking in the decor. They had shifted the furniture a bit over the last few years, but the room was more or less the same as it had been before.

"God, Jessie, is it really you?" he asked at long last, his voice shaking.

"I think so," she said, swallowing hard and staring at her hands as though she didn't recognize them. She looked ready to burst into tears, but was trying hard to fight them back.

"All these years . . . I never thought I'd see you again," Race whispered, his voice full of awe. "My god, Jess, we thought you were dead! So much time had passed, and knowing Sampson . . ." He couldn't finish the sentence. "What happened, sweetheart? How did you get here? Where have you been?"

Jessie wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. For the first time since she set foot in the compound, she looked up and met her father's eyes directly, her face filled with fear. "I don't know," she said shakily. "I don't remember. . . ." With this admission, the last of her defenses crumbled and she curled in on herself, crying openly. Race moved quickly to her side, gathering her into his arms.

"Shhhh," he murmured gently, holding her tightly as she fell apart before his eyes. "It's going to be okay . . . you're home now, you're safe . . . we'll figure this out. . . ."

She cried for a long time, allowing Race to rock her gently as he used to do when she was a little girl waking up from a bad dream. He only wished that this nightmare could be shaken so easily.


	2. Elapsed

**A/N:** Thank you everyone who has read and reviewed so far, I'm glad to see there are still a few folks around! Please keep up the feedback, I love to hear what you think!

Content Warning: this story will be very dark at times. It will deal heavily with the characters undergoing and recovering from trauma, and I want to handle that subject matter as realistically as possible. That's part of why I've been working on this story for so long; there are many sensitive issues to be dealt with, including issues around sexual abuse, and some of it may be triggering. That said, it's also a story about _overcoming _these hardships, so have faith; there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

_Chapter 2  
__Elapsed_

Jessie turned the bathroom faucet on high and splashed her face with icy water, ignoring the lingering chill that had settled in her bones after her trip through the storm. The harsh sting of the water shocked her consciousness enough that she almost felt normal for just a moment, and even though the feeling was brief and fleeting, she clung to it. She splashed herself with the water over and over until it had numbed her skin and she could no longer feel that, either.

Without opening her eyes, she grabbed instinctively for the towel that always hung to the left of the sink, but her hand found only the cool tile wall. Brushing some water out of her eyes, she squinted around herself and spotted it hanging from a newly installed towel bar on the opposite side of the mirror. Momentarily irritated, she grabbed it and wondered why no one had told her they were going to do work on the bathroom.

She caught herself at this thought. _I guess a lot of towels can change places in three years._

Three years! Bracing herself against the counter, Jessie looked at her reflection in the mirror for the first time since coming into the bathroom. It still caught her off guard every time she did. She looked so much older . . . no, she _was_ so much older. She was seventeen years old now, and not that far away from eighteen; she couldn't even process that. Her hair had been cut roughly at some point; it was uneven in many places, but it hung around her shoulders now, several inches shorter than it had been last she remembered. She had hit a growth spurt at some point and now she stood closer to her mother's height, from what she could gauge by the clothes she wore. Most disconcerting of all was her face: no longer round and childish, it had narrowed and was now sculpted with signs of age. She could pass for an adult now. Every time she saw her new reflection, her breath caught in her throat and the anxiety of the unknown shook her to her very core. She wondered how long it was going to take her to get used to it.

She thought back to a few hours before, when she had first awoken to this new reality. She had regained consciousness in a hotel room in Augusta, alone and sporting the overlarge men's clothing she had arrived at the Quest compound still wearing. At the time, she had not known where she was; she had known absolutely nothing other than the room around her and her frightening lack of memory of any of the events leading up to her being there.

_Something was very wrong. As soon as she woke up, she could feel this thought weighing her down, a malignant force that left her feeling sick even though she had no idea why._

_The last thing Jessie remembered was a night in Venezuela, walking along the beach with Jonny and bickering about whether or not they should "borrow" Dr. Quest's new hoverboard prototype for a test run. They had been in South America visiting her mother while she finished up an excavation. Everything before that night was clear in Jessie's mind, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't remember the outcome of their argument or anything that happened after. _

_She laid still for several moments, listening carefully and trying to pick out any noise that would indicate she was not alone in the room. There was a distant electrical hum and the soft ticking of a clock, but otherwise there was only silence. On some level, she knew she was alone._

_Opening her eyes slowly, she examined the room around her and found it as empty as she had guessed it would be. It looked like every cheap motel room she had ever seen: generic framed prints on the walls, horribly patterned carpet and drapes, sickly yellow light casting shadows into corners. She lay on one of two beds, and although the curtains were drawn, she could see light coming in from outside._

_Fighting down her rapidly growing fear, Jessie knew she had to make her move immediately. She hadn't gotten here on her own and it was too much to hope that she would be left alone for long, so she needed to get the hell out while she still could. Her head swam and blackness threatened her vision when she stood up quickly, but she waited a moment for it to subside and went quickly and quietly to the door, relieved to find it unlocked._

_As soon as she was outside, she started sprinting, trying to put as much distance between herself and the motel as possible. It was immediately clear that she was not in South America anymore; she was definitely back in the United States, and it was _cold_. She was only wearing a t-shirt and the frigid wind cut her like a knife. _

_It was only a few blocks before she couldn't run anymore. She was weak and lightheaded and the exertion made her feel like she might pass out. Glancing behind her, she saw the sidewalk was empty and it didn't look as though she had been followed. She paused to catch her breath and take in her surroundings and was shocked to recognize the diner across the street from where she stood: a large sign declared _'Augusta Roadhouse Cafe.' _She, Jonny, and Hadji had eaten there on several occasions._

_She was back in Augusta? How had she gotten from South America to Maine without any memory of it? Just how much of her memory was missing? She had assumed only a few hours had lapsed, maybe a day, but now she had no idea. The uncertainty terrified her. As she thought about what she _did_ remember, she encountered shadows of memory: residual sensations and emotions tied to concrete things she didn't have access to. The more she chased them, the quicker they slipped away._

_It was growing darker and it had begun to snow. She was painfully cold. The cafe across the street was closed, and every other building in the area was a factory or darkened office building. Even though it went against everything her father had ever taught her, she felt compelled to go back to the motel room. It was another memory shadow, nagging at the edges of her mind insistently. On some level, she knew that the room would still be empty, that no one was coming for her._

_Deciding to trust this strange urge, she turned to head back toward the motel. As she did, she caught a glimpse of her reflection swimming in the diner window. The reflection was fuzzy and distorted from the curve of the glass, but she could tell that her hair was shorter and that she looked different somehow. Her breath caught in her throat. What had happened? _

_On the verge of actual panic, Jessie turned and ran back toward the motel from which she had just fled. She found that the door had luckily not closed all the way, allowing her to push her way back in. Noting that the room was mercifully still empty, she headed directly to the mirror. The shock of what she saw would not be easily forgotten. _

_A new face stared back at her: the face of a young woman, not a young teenager. She put her hands to her face, touching her skin, trying to make sure the vision was real. How could this be?_

_She spun around and scanned the motel room. A newspaper lay folded on the table near the door, and she dashed over to it, searching desperately for the date. All she needed was the year . . . 1997, 1997, 1997, she prayed silently._

_December 14th, 2000._

_Jessie felt her knees give way beneath her and she fell into a stiff armchair, staring blindly at the numbers. Three years . . . _over_ three years! And she didn't remember any of it._

_The newspaper slipped from her grasp, fluttering to the floor. As it fell, she noticed an envelope slide from the inner part of the paper, landing at her feet. Numbly, she reached out and picked it up. It was a basic white envelope with her name printed simply across the front._

_Fumbling to open it, she pulled out a short, typed letter written to her by someone named Thomas Sampson. She didn't think she had ever heard the name before, but just reading it left her with a horrible feeling she couldn't explain._

_Sampson had written her a brief explanation of the last three years: that he had kidnapped her to get revenge against her father, and that after three years of exacting his vengeance, he felt satisfied. He wrote that her family believed she had been killed because she was never found, but instead of fulfilling that belief, he would be a "better person" and let her go. He explained that he had wiped her memories of the abduction to prevent her from leading anyone to him, but aside from losing three years of her life, she was free to go. His closing words echoed in her head, sickening her physically:_

I will miss you, Jessie. Perhaps one day we will meet again.

_In the back of her mind, she could almost hear a deep voice saying the words aloud, and she knew that it was Sampson's voice._

_Along with the letter, three crumpled dollar bills had been tucked into the envelope - money to get home with, she assumed. _How considerate,_ she thought to herself bitterly, despite the numbness of denial that had begun to set in. It was time to find her way to Rockport, to a home that apparently thought she was dead. She considered finding a phone and calling, but she couldn't find the words; what could she possibly say to her family after three years, when to her it felt like no more than a day? All of a sudden she couldn't decide whether she would rather have her parents hold her or go into hiding and avoid dealing with any of this at all._

_She decided she would take the county bus, which would drop her about a mile from the compound. Feeling like a zombie, still clutching the letter in her fist, she wandered back out of the motel room and into the falling dusk, forgetting yet again about her lack of weather protection. This time she didn't notice the cold._

In the bathroom at the Quest house, Jessie shook her head to clear the memories. It did her no good; her issue wasn't with what she remembered . . . it was with what she could not. She rubbed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on, and as she did so, she noticed a set of half moon-shaped scars on her left forearm that hadn't been there last she knew. She ran her fingertips over the slightly raised scar tissue. There were four of them - fingernail markings.

A morbid curiosity took over and she began to inspect her body carefully. There was a matching set of fingernail marks on her right arm, a long scar on her right calf that must have been some kind of knife wound, and random scarred-over abrasions around both wrists that looked like they were left by handcuffs that had been bound too tightly and rubbed off skin. She shivered involuntarily.

Against her better judgment, against everything that was crying out for her to stop, she slowly unbuttoned her mother's shirt and pulled it away from her body to reveal her torso, which she had so carefully avoided inspecting earlier when she was changing. There were random markings here and there; some looked newer, a section near her shoulder still badly bruised in shades of purple and blue, while others had clearly been there for a while. One thing in particular caught her eye, and with trembling fingers, she reached up and pulled the cup of her bra down slightly, just enough to see the the still-healing remnants of a bruise. The question had crossed her mind, but she had been holding it off, not ready to know the answer. This was very strong evidence that Sampson had done a lot more to her than she cared to consider right now.

Jessie's stomach rebelled and she leaned over the toilet, retching without result. She had no idea when she last ate. Even once the reflex wore off and she was able to lean back against the bathroom wall, shaking slightly, she still felt nauseated. She thought she might feel nauseated for the rest of her life.

_Oh, God, what's happened to me?_


	3. Changed

**A/N: **Thank you all for the kind reviews and encouragement! You all make me very happy and I'm thrilled to see so many people are still around! I apologize for the wait on this chapter; my job demands a lot of my time and I am very focused on writing this story realistically, which sometimes requires a lot of trial and error until I get something I'm satisfied with. Let me know your thoughts!

_Chapter 3  
__Changed_

Jonny shut the door softly behind him as he slipped into the foyer. He pulled off his thoroughly drenched jacket and tossed it onto a hook, ignoring the puddle of melted snow that formed on the floor. Bandit raced down the stairs and began to lick him frantically.

He glanced at his watch and saw it was already ten-thirty, much later that he was supposed to have been home. He figured he should go and tell Race he was back, even though no part of him felt like dealing with people right now. For the last several hours, he had enjoyed blessed solitude. He had blown off the basketball game and instead wandered around Rockport in the snow until darkness fell and he began to shiver from the cold. Eventually, he had taken a seat at a small café and nursed a cup of coffee for several hours until he figured that perhaps his welcome was overstayed. By then it was so late that he had reluctantly hailed a cab home. The game had ended over two hours ago.

It was hard for him to spend too much time at the compound these days. Even now, after so long, the atmosphere was charged with tension and pain. The situation had improved and all of them were doing better, but something had broken the day Jessie disappeared. Her absence left a void they had never been able to fill, and even three years later, things never felt as easy or as simple as they once had. Jonny tried to get away from the reminders of the life that had been stolen from them as often as he could. He felt bad for sending Hadji off on a date with Angela just so he could ditch the basketball game anyway; he knew his brother didn't care much for the shallow cheerleader. And Hadji hadn't protested purely out of concern for Jonny's needs, which made him feel even worse.

"I'll make it up to him, boy," he told his dog quietly.

Pushing a clump of damp hair out of his eyes, he headed for the kitchen, frowning at the overabundance of lights that illuminated the house. It seemed more than just Race would need; perhaps Hadji was home already. Not his father, surely; Benton had told them not to expect him home until after midnight.

He found Race sitting at the kitchen table. The boy hardly glanced at the older man. "Hey, Race, I'm back," he said casually, going to the refrigerator and grabbing a can of soda. He opened it and downed half in one sip before setting it on the counter and turning to take a real look at Race for the first time. "I think I'm just gonna turn in, I'm . . ."

He trailed off when he saw the look on the man's face. Race's eyes were red and bloodshot, his head in his hands; he stared at Jonny with a haunted, dazed look. Jonny's stomach dropped and he could feel himself withdrawing already.

Not again. Not today. It had been months since Race's last plunge into self-loathing and depression; he had been doing so much better. Jonny had allowed himself to hope that maybe the worst of those days were past them. He hated to see Race in such a distraught state; and perhaps even more than that, he hated that whenever it happened, he was looked upon to be the adult. He _couldn't_ fill that role! Why couldn't they see he was hurting, too? But it didn't matter, especially now, when he was the only one here to handle it. It didn't matter how he felt or what he was; in this situation he was in charge, whether he liked it or not.

"Race?" Jonny asked cautiously, fighting back his thoughts. He knew from experience that when Race was in this state, he could sneak out and never even be noticed, but after he had already been so callous toward Hadji, he couldn't be cruel to Race too. "What's up?"

Race appeared completely alert, if a bit shell-shocked. This was different from how he usually acted in one of his episodes, and it made Jonny take a closer look at him. "Take a seat, Jonny," Race said slowly. "We have to talk."

Slowly and warily, Jonny walked over to the table and sat down across from Race. His studied the man silently, wondering what was going on.

Race drew a deep, shaky breath and looked at Jonny evenly. "Jessie's back," he said softly.

Jonny stared. Race had sunk pretty deep into depression before, but if he was claiming Jessie's return, he had reached a new depth. "What are you talking about?" he asked slowly.

"She came home," Race repeated.

Jonny saw the eager honesty in Race's eyes, but he shook it off. It was impossible, and he wouldn't let himself get drawn into the lie again; the pain of it would be his undoing. "Um . . ."

"She's here," Race said again, more firmly this time. "It's true. I could hardly believe it at first, either . . . I'm not sure I can even now."

Jonny stood up abruptly, shaking his head and staring at the ceiling, fighting to keep his voice even despite the pain he was feeling. "Race, I know you miss her, we all do, but please . . . don't do this to me . . . to yourself . . ."

"_No._" The firm truth in Race's voice made Jonny stop. "This isn't pretend. I'm not making this up, and I haven't been drinking. Jonny, she's in this house _right_ _now_. She's alive. She's _here."_

Jonny opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn't find the words. He stared out at the hallway and the impact of Race's words finally hit him, shattering the denial he had used to defend himself.

Jessie was home. Impossibly, against every odd, she had returned.

He had to see her.

As Jonny turned almostly blindly to rush toward the stairs, Race jumped to his feet and caught Jonny's arm. "No, son. Not now."

"But . . . but if she's here, I have to see her!" he said with a note of panic. "Race, I have to—"

"You will," Race told him, leading the boy back to the table and pushing him gently back into his chair. "But not right now. She's completely exhausted, let her rest. I don't want to overwhelm her."

Jonny's mind was reeling. As desperate as he felt, he knew from the look in Race's eyes that he wasn't going to budge. "Race, please, what—"

Hadji chose that moment to walk into the kitchen. He frowned deeply as he observed his brother's half-crazed state and Race's pained reserve. The two turned to stare at him in unison, and Hadji sighed. Such scenes had become almost commonplace in their home. His mind leaped to a million different possibilities, from Jonny having done something crazy again to Race having had another relapse.

"Something has happened," he stated simply.

There was a vague desperation in Jonny's eyes. "Jessie . . ." he began, but ended up just shaking his head and staring toward the stairs.

Hadji nodded slowly. Hearing her name was hardly a surprise in this situation. "What about her, Jonny?" he asked, keeping his voice soothing. Though neither of his family members looked as though they were on any particularly dangerous edge, it was usually best to keep everyone as calm as possible.

Race rested a hand on Jonny's shoulder and looked at Hadji. "Jessie came home tonight, Hadji."

Hadji's breath caught sharply in his throat. He thought he had been prepared for anything— except that. He controlled his surprise; showing the barest hint of emotion, he walked over and sat beside his brother, looking at Race resolutely. "Tell me."

When Race had finished recounting the night's events, he took his seat once more, running his hands through his short hair and looking hopelessly lost.

"Is she okay?" Jonny finally found the words to ask.

Race shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, Jonny. She doesn't remember anything. She doesn't know where she's been all this time . . . I think she's still shell shocked that time has passed at all."

"She remembers none of it?" Hadji echoed, surprised.

"Doesn't seem like it," Race said wearily. "She wouldn't say much, though, she was pretty withdrawn."

"Brainwashing?" Jonny's voice was cold with anger.

"It's possible. Sampson would know how. Or some kind of amnesia in response to trauma. . . ."

He trailed off into a tense silence. Jonny's fists tightened, his eyes hard; anger boiled inside him with a startling intensity.

"Have you told Estella yet?" asked Hadji gently, after a moment.

"No," Race sighed. "I keep trying to think of what to say . . . putting it in words feels impossible . . . but I have to call her. I have no right to delay it any longer."

Hadji stood and gestured to Jonny. "Do what you must, Race. Jonny and I will give you some privacy."

"All right," Race agreed. He looked at Jonny directly. "Don't go looking for her, kiddo. Just give her a chance to rest. For her sake."

Jonny nodded without comment and followed Hadji from the room. They settled themselves on the couch in front of the television, which was playing yet another Christmas cartoon. Hadji grabbed the remote and turned up the sound - for Race's privacy, Jonny imagined, as neither boy had any intention of watching dogs sing "Jingle Bells."

"Is this real, Hadj?" Jonny asked after a moment. His eyes were wide as he stared straight ahead at the TV screen, looking beyond it.

"I believe it _is_ real, my friend," Hadji replied.

Jonny shook his head. "How can you just accept it? You haven't seen her, you don't know for sure . . . I'm not sure if I believe it yet. Race has freaked out before . . . so have I . . . what if it's just another false alarm?"

"You believe it," Hadji stated with a quiet certainty. "That is what makes you doubt it."

"But it's been so long!"

"It is not inconceivable. Unlikely, yes, but in our lives, we have seen our fair share of the unlikely. And have you not spent countless hours of your life seaching for her since she was taken? Have you not believed this day would come?"

Jonny looked at Hadji and let out a humorless chuckle. "I don't know what I believe anymore, Hadji. Yeah, I never stopped trying, never stopped hoping. But I don't really know . . . was I just lying to myself that whole time?"

"What do you mean?"

Jonny sighed. His head was in such a state of disarray that he could barely understand his own thoughts, let alone convey them to his brother. "I mean exactly what all of you were always saying: wasn't I just in denial?"

"I know you were told that often," Hadji admitted. "And perhaps that was part of it, but there is something to be said for the consistence of your belief. When we gave up hope, you held on, and you were obviously right to do so."

Jonny turned away again and he was quiet for so long that Hadji thought their conversation had ended, but his brother's soft voice interrupted the silence once more.

"I was thirteen years old when she was taken," Jonny began. "And from the moment I realized what happened, I was searching for her. I'd walk into her room every morning and every night, and my kid brain had me convinced that one day, she'd be there. Her room was empty all the time when she was off with Estella; this wasn't any different. She'd come back, I was sure of it. And when she didn't right away, it didn't matter that much; I could be patient. I went to the places we used to play and I looked for her there. I'd spend hours sitting in our old treehouse or the lighthouse or the beach, just waiting for her to show up. I saw Race and Estella, saw how they were reacting, heard what they were saying. Dad was always talking to me, trying to make me understand. But I didn't want to let those things in, so I didn't. I just turned myself off. We _always_ won, you know? Good always won. This time it was just taking longer.

"Then the weeks wore on and turned into months. I stopped being so convinced that one day she was going to show up. Every time I walked into her room to check, every time she wasn't there, I got a little more broken, until one day I just gave up. I just couldn't walk in again. I opened my eyes and looked around myself for the first time. I began to realize the hopelessness I'd been ignoring. I started to understand exactly what it was that was happening."

Jonny shook his head and stared intently at a spot on the coffee table, his eyes haunted by the memories he was sharing. "Those were dark days for me, Hadj. I'm not used to doing anything without something to keep me going, something to believe in. And suddenly, I didn't have anything. It was the first time in my life I ever really felt helpless.

"Then there was the scare in Argentina. You remember that, don't you?"

Jonny paused for a moment and looked at Hadji, who was watching him intently, shocked by his brother's honesty. Jonny had never shared these feelings with anyone. He had locked them up inside himself, and unless Hadji was very much mistaken, this was the first time in three years that they had been released.

"I am unlikely to forget," Hadji agreed.

Jonny nodded. "And as messed up as it is, when the body wasn't Jessie's, that gave me hope again. It made me believe with all my heart that she was still out there. She was waiting for us to come and get her, and I'd spent so long sitting around at home, doing nothing, letting her down. I couldn't disappoint her anymore! So that night I packed a bag and took off. I went to as many places as I could . . . I used every contact I'd made through my dad or Race. Place after place, day after day, and I didn't have a clue what I was doing. No one knew anything, every tiny lead was a dead end, but I didn't care. Just like when I was little, I ignored what I didn't want to accept. If I kept trying long enough, someone would help me. If I didn't give up, I'd find her."

He put his forehead in his hand and sighed. "But I didn't. And even after you and Dad found me and brought me home, I hated myself for it. I was letting her down again. After that, I never let myself stop believing. I never allowed myself to stop searching, at least in little ways. Did you know I still follow up on every lead we ever had? I have a file in QuestWorld that I still check regularly."

"I did not," Hadji admitted, his brother's obvious pain hurting him.

"And the thing is, I held onto my faith because I _knew—_I _knew_ that if I let it slip again, I was going back down to that dark place that held me for so long! And I didn't think I could handle it. So I forced myself to believe. And now, looking back on it with the realization that I don't have to hold on anymore, I realize just how much of my steadfast belief was a lie to keep me going. Denial, just like Dad was always saying. It's kinda scary, you know? Looking back on such a long period of time and realizing that the largest part of it was just something you made up in your head."

Jonny fell silent, picking at his fingers absentmindedly. Hadji hesitantly began to reply, his mind filled with the things Jonny had said.

"There is no shame it in, Jonny. You did what you had to in order to keep yourself sustained. We all did."

"It all just feels so twisted," Jonny sighed. "I've wanted her to come back for so long, but now she's _here, _ in this house, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. What do I say to her?"

"Do not put pressure on yourself, Jonny. We will take it one step at a time."

"All these years I've been imagining this reunion, but I always pictured us as the same kids we were when we lost her. But I'm not the same person I was when I was thirteen, and neither is she! I'm only now beginning to see that."

Hadji watched Jonny closely. The boy had leaped to his feet and was now pacing the length of the room, looking agitated. "Does it change anything?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"Does it change how you feel?"

The answer was a long time in coming, and was softly spoken in the end. "No."

"Then there you have it," Hadji said simply.

"It can't be that easy!" cried Jonny.

"It is exactly that easy." Hadji looked at Jonny intently. "You have always listened to your heart, Jonny. It is what sets you so far apart from others. You have become so accustomed to the race that you no longer recognize the finish. This is the moment we have waited for, my friend. She has come home! After all the pain and loss, we have been given a rare second chance, and this should be an occasion for joy, not sorrow. You must let yourself feel _that_ instead of waiting for something else to go wrong."

Jonny stopped pacing and nodded. "Yeah. I guess you're right. This is just kind of hard to take in right now."

"There is no rush. The rush has ended."

Jonny gave Hadji a half-smile. "So it's all smooth sailing from here, pal?"

"Hardly," Hadji responded. "In fact, I would venture to say that we have seen only the beginning of the storm. But for now, at least, you have some time."

"Be patient?" Jonny sighed.

"Yes."

"Great, because that's one of my strongest skills."

Looking toward the entrance to the den, Jonny stood silently for a long time. Hadji turned up the television a bit as he heard Race's voice rising in the kitchen. Jonny suddenly let out a dry laugh, making Hadji look to him once more, wondering how his brother was about to surprise him this time.

"All those days I sat in Jessie's room, waiting for her to be there . . . all those days of walking past the closed door, knowing it was empty, and I never really considered how it would feel to open the door and find her waiting for me. And now that I know she _is_ there, the idea of going to her terrifies me like nothing else." He ran a shaking hand through his hair. "But I have to see her. I'm going crazy. I can't wait anymore. And if I wait another minute, then Race will be in here and I may have to wait hours. Promise or no promise, I gotta see her."

Hadji smiled. "I wondered how long it would take you."

"I'm going for it. Cover for me with Race if I'm not back in time; tell him I went to the bathroom or something."

"He is not stupid, you know."

Jonny scowled. "It doesn't matter! As long as I can see her for a minute, I don't care if he knows."

"Very well. Good luck."

Nodding rigidly, Jonny headed quickly for the foyer, hoping to make it up the stairs and disappear into the dark hallway above before he could be noticed, but luck was not on his side. He rounded the corner and nearly slammed right into Race.

Kicking himself mentally, he hurriedly apologized. "Sorry! I was just -"

"Save it," Race interrupted, looking at him knowingly. "She's not upstairs, she's down here in my room."

"O-Oh," Jonny stammered, embarrassed and frustrated at having been caught.

After a long moment of silence, Race sighed. "Five minutes, Jonny. If she's asleep, don't her wake her up, you hear me?"

Relieved, Jonny nodded earnestly. "Thanks, Race."

Before the man could change his mind, Jonny headed quickly toward Race's room. He came to a stop in front of the door, drawing a shaky breath, his heart slamming against his ribcage. This was it. The nagging voice of cynicism pestered him not to lower his walls yet, not to fully believe that opening this door would be any different than opening any other.

He knocked softly. After several moments passed without response, he pushed the door slowly inward, his hands trembling. The room was dimly illuminated by the small downcast lamp on Race's desk, but the faint yellow light was enough for Jonny to see her.

He expelled a shuddering breath that he hadn't realized he was choking on. She lay curled under the blankets, her face relaxed and peaceful in sleep, one hand curled beneath her head on the pillow. Even though he could tell that she had aged, he was struck by how young she still seemed in that moment, looking for all the world like any little girl asleep on her father's bed.

A remarkable surge of emotion washed over him. He had never felt so many things at once: joy, sadness, triumph, worry, love, fear. The force of it caused his knees to shake and he leaned back against the wall, refusing to look away from her even as tears stung at his eyes and a lump built in his throat. He wasn't sure how long he stood there taking in the enormity of this miracle, but he was suddenly certain that Hadji had been right. It didn't matter that years had passed, that they had changed, that nothing could ever be quite the same. They could build a new normal. They could create a future full of happiness to spite the pain the past had given them. This was the chance they had been waiting for, and he would be damned if he let his fears interfere. All he needed to restore his faith was the sight of her laying there, real and whole and alive and _home_.

In all of his almost-seventeen years, he was sure he had never seen a sight more beautiful than this.


	4. Missing

**A/N: **Thanks again to everyone who has read, reviewed, and encouraged! I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the slow pace; things will begin to pick up, but I do plan to spend a lot of time (especially early on) exploring emotions and fleshing out where the characters are at with things. I'm a psych geek; I can't help it!

_Chapter 4_

_Missing_

Dawn came slowly, offering a brief reprieve from the storm that had been hammering the coast of Maine all night. The sun peeked through the clouds, staining the sky with soft swirls of pink and orange, and the gusty winds faded away, leaving the air still and silent both inside the compound and out.

Little had changed in the hours since Jonny had seen for himself that Jessie was alive. Benton had arrived home around two in the morning to find his family solemnly awaiting him. He took the news about as well as the rest of them, although he managed to remain more functional than Race and Jonny, both of whom had withdrawn into themselves since Benton showed up. Once the same questions had been asked and given the same unsatisfactory answers, Benton busied himself with pestering his family to eat and get rest, advice which was unanimously ignored.

Jessie somehow managed to sleep through it all. Race checked on her obsessively throughout the night, sometimes every ten minutes, and as of six that morning, she was still sleeping soundly - a fact that Jonny couldn't wrap his mind around.

"How can she sleep through this?" he finally exclaimed, pacing the length of the kitchen. "I'd be freaking out!"

"Sometimes, when something is too much for the mind to handle, it will simply shut off," Hadji offered gently.

Jonny knew his brother had a point, but the waiting was killing him. They had spent hours sitting around, waiting for something to happen to set events in motion, and it was driving him nuts. The air was weighed down with anxiety and unspoken thoughts. He had been dealing with it well enough until his father had returned; Jonny and Race tended to deal with the situation in similar ways, making them comfortable enough companions, and Hadji knew when it was best to leave them to their silence. Benton, full of good intentions, kept nudging them all to talk about how they were feeling. Jonny didn't want to deal with it, and with Estella's plane due to land in only a couple of hours, it was only getting harder to be around the others.

It was maddening how much waiting this all entailed! He had no idea what to expect, but had he ever been asked, he certainly wouldn't have described this scene. His inherently limited patience had exceeded its limits and he was restless and fidgety.

"I'm going for a walk," he declared suddenly, turning immediately toward the door.

"Are you okay, son?" Benton asked with a note of worry.

"Yeah. I'll be back." He grabbed a jacket and closed the door behind him without another word. The rest of the family watched him make a beeline for the lighthouse.

"I'm going to check on Jessie," Race announced a moment later, heading back down the hallway toward his room even though he had looked in on her only minutes ago.

Benton watched his haggard friend slip out of sight before turning back to his eldest son, who was seated at the counter. Hadji's gaze met Benton's for a moment, and the emotions in their eyes were mirror images. Their moment of silent unity passed as Hadji looked back down at the mug he was holding and Benton walked back to the coffee maker to pour himself yet another cup.

"I wonder where Jonny's going," Benton murmured with a bit of worry. Jonny had a history of doing mad things where Jessie was involved, and he didn't know what the boy was liable to do in this situation.

Seeing the worry on his adopted father's face, Hadji tried to reassure him. "You need not worry for him, Dr. Quest. I do not believe he is going to do anything rash. He simply needed some time alone. You know that is how he copes."

"By himself, yes," said Benton sadly. "I wish he would talk to us. I'm not going to feel better until he does."

"He spoke with me earlier," Hadji offered hesitantly. When Benton looked up sharply, he added, "I do not think I can share with you the things he told me, but he opened up a great deal about what he has felt these past three years. I think it was good for him to let it out into the open. He simply does not know what to do right now; he is not good at waiting. And he fears for her, as we all do."

Benton nodded, feeling slightly appeased that Jonny had opened up to Hadji. He would have liked Jonny to talk to _him_, but if he couldn't, then Hadji was more capable than anyone else of helping him.

"Jonny has a real bit of Race in him, though," Benton mused. "And as lost as Race is right now, he's angry. He wants revenge. I'm afraid Jonny wants the same."

Hadji shook his head slowly. "I do not believe he is at that stage yet. Right now, he is overwhelmed by the very idea of her presence. I do not think he has fully processed the darker side of all of this."

"And once he comes to accept that darker side?" Benton asked, already knowing the answer.

Hadji was a moment in answering. "Then, I fear, he will be very angry indeed."

* * *

Jessie had been feigning sleep for the last hour.

She had awoken slightly before dawn, drenched in sweat, her throat tight with anxiety. Her sleep had been plagued by nightmares, but they were unlike any she had ever experienced before. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't recall anything concrete about them. All she could grasp was a deeply permeating feeling of terror and shame that seemed to have settled itself into her very bones, leaving her feeling cold and shaken and vulnerable. She knew somehow that these feelings were more than just nightmares, that they were the ghost memories creeping in from her subconscious again, tormenting her with all she didn't know about her own life.

Her father had poked his head in to check on her several times since she woke up, but every time she heard his footsteps coming down the hall, she instinctively closed her eyes and evened her breathing until he left again. Admitting she was awake meant facing all of this in the light of day. It meant seeing the rest of her family. It meant fielding a thousand questions she couldn't answer.

Some of the shock of yesterday had worn off and her mind felt a bit clearer, but she still had absolutely no idea how to deal with any of this. She hated feeling so timid and afraid. She had always been known for being recklessly tough and cocky, and now she couldn't even pretend to be all right. The worst part was not knowing; three years of her life were just _gone_, and now here she was, left to try to pick up the pieces without knowing what caused it all to shatter in the first place.

_You can't just hide in here forever, Bannon,_ Jessie told herself harshly, hoping some false bravado would motivate her into doing something other than just laying there. It was true; sooner rather than later, she was going to have to face all of it. But for now, she found cold comfort in the silence and isolation.

Sunlight was beginning to filter in through the window, brightening the room and glinting off the glass of a picture frame standing on her dad's desk. Curious and increasingly restless, Jessie rolled out of bed and crossed the room to examine the picture.

It was a simple photograph of Jonny, Hadji, and Dr. Quest standing by the lighthouse. Dr. Quest stood between his sons, a hand on each of their shoulders, all of them smiling into the camera. It was the kind of deliberate family photo that gets taken and sent to distant relatives at holidays, posed and unremarkable. What held Jessie's attention was the recency of the photo; the boys that had once been her best friends looked in this picture much more like men now. Her breath caught in her throat and that same sick feeling she got every time she looked in the mirror settled in her gut once again. She stared at the picture of her family as they were now for a long time, wondering if it was just her imagination or if their smiles were as forced as they seemed.

As she put the picture frame back, she noticed a second one lying face-down behind it, coated in dust, apparently having been there for quite some time. Picking it up, she realized it was a photo she recognized. Dr. Quest had just finished modifying a camera to add high-definition long-range capabilities and had decided to test it by taking their picture from the top of the cliffs while they stood in the tide far below on a particularly warm summer evening. She, Jonny, and Hadji stood grinning upward happily, the sun glinting off the waves behind them. The boys had their arms around each other's shoulders and Jonny had been trying to give Jessie bunny ears as she playfully pushed him away. There were no forced smiles in this picture; it was a perfect snapshot of the innocence and joy of their friendship. It had been taken a few months before their trip to Venezuela.

She looked back to the other photo, into the faces of her now-grown friends whose smiles didn't reach their eyes any longer. Who were they now? Had they changed? Would the three of them ever laugh together again the way they had in the surf that day? The thought of those days being gone forever filled her with a whole new kind of ache.

Entirely wrapped up in the picture, Jessie didn't notice her father open the door until he spoke softly.

"What are you looking at, poncheta?"

Jessie jumped involuntarily. The picture slipped from her hands and struck the floor sideways, shattering the glass.

"I'm sorry!" she cried, bending to try to clean up the mess. "I didn't know you were there . . ."

Race rushed over and gently took over the glass collection. "Don't worry about it." He quickly used the frame to get the glass into a confined pile and pushed it out of the way. "I'm sorry I scared you; I thought you would still be asleep."

"I just woke up," Jessie lied hesitantly.

Looking down at the exposed photo in his hand, Race smiled sadly. "I always loved this picture of you three." The smile faded as he set it back on the desk. "After a while, I couldn't look at it anymore. It was just too much."

Jessie struggled to swallow the lump in her throat and nodded stiffly, moving over to sit on the edge of the bed. Speaking felt physically difficult.

"How are you feeling?" Race asked gently, his face creased with worry.

"Fine." How could she hope to give an actual answer to that question?

"Are you hungry?" Race continued to fret. "You should eat something."

The thought of food made Jessie's stomach do backflips. She shook her head.

"Can you at least try for me? I can bring something mild in for you. You need to get your strength back."

Food would not replenish the kind of strength she was lacking, but she shrugged, knowing he wouldn't let up until she agreed.

"Okay, I'll make you some breakfast," Race said, sounding relieved that she was giving him a chance to do something. "Your mom's on her way here. Her plane gets in pretty soon. Would you like to come with me to pick her up?"

"I . . . I don't think I'm ready for that yet," Jessie admitted slowly. The thought of dealing with a crowded airport and her frantic mother was overwhelming even in theory.

"That's fine," Race reassured her quickly. When she made no effort to say anything further, he sighed. "I'll go get you some food, okay?" He started to head toward the door, but Jessie stopped him.

"Dad?" She tried to force the words out before she could change her mind. She was afraid, but she had to know. "What . . . what happened to me?"

Race's face fell. The look of pain was so intense that Jessie thought she may as well have sucker punched him. "You really don't remember anything?" he asked gently after a moment.

Jessie shook her head slowly. Race crossed the room and took a seat in his desk chair so that they were facing each other, a few inches apart. For the first time, Jessie noticed that he seemed to have aged a great deal more than only three years; there were new lines in his face, his hair seemed thinner, and he looked more fragile than she had ever seen him.

"Is there anything at all that you _do_ know?" he asked finally, studying her.

"I know that a man named Sampson had me." Seeing the look on her father's face, she shook her head hastily. "I don't _remember_ it, but he left a letter . . . I found it when I woke up."

"Do you still have it?" Race's tone was sharp.

Jessie nodded and pulled it from her pocket. Even after changing clothes, she had folded it up and kept it close to her. As sick as it made her feel to read it, the words on that page were her only connection to her missing memories. She slowly handed it to Race.

"This is all I know."

He scanned the letter with tense speed. His eyes narrowed in fury as he got to the end of the letter and Sampson's implied threat. Moving suddenly, Race crumpled the letter tightly in his fist and threw it across the room. "Bastard!"

The sudden display of anger made Jessie jump and she scooted instinctively further back. Her heart was racing; she felt afraid, even though she wasn't sure why. There was no reason to assume her father would have any other type of reaction.

Race saw immediately what his outburst had done to her and his face softened again. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry ..." He reached his hand out to her in a sign of comfort and she accepted it. He sighed.

"Sampson and I worked together in the agency," Race explained slowly. "He was always a little more intense than the rest of us, and after a few years, we figured out that he had decided our line of work wasn't quite rewarding enough for him; he had been running his own criminal operations on the side. When he realized we knew, he took off, tried to flee the country with his young son. We hunted him down, but it got ugly - turned into a shootout. A stray bullet hit his son . . . my bullet. The boy died in Sampson's arms."

This was the first time Jessie had heard about any of this; her father never talked about his time in the agency, and she had always known better than to ask him about it. It was clear that the guilt from that day still affected him.

"He was put in jail," Race continued, "but he blamed me for all of it, and he vowed revenge. He was released a few years ago. I didn't even realize he was out, but he never forgot . . . he came after me . . . he took you. . . ."

"In Venezuela, when we were visiting Mom," Jessie filled in. Her voice sounded robotic even to her own ears. "Jonny and I went walking on the beach. . . ."

Race nodded, his eyes glassy. "We told you not to go far, but you were gone a long time. We were starting to worry when Jonny came running back into camp. Someone had been hiding in the jungle and shot the two of you with tranquilizers from afar. He didn't see anything; he was knocked out cold almost instantly and when he woke up, you were gone.

"At first, we had no idea who was behind it. Our minds jumped to Surd, but we ruled that out pretty fast. We thought it might be a drug cartel or someone randomly hoping to get money for an American, but we had nothing to go on, no leads . . . he was flawless at covering his tracks. And then, the third day you were missing, a package arrived at the door of the hotel we had moved to in the city.

"It was a small box with your bracelet in it - the one your mom gave you for your birthday. There was a note folded in the corner; by that point, I was hoping it was a ransom note, some lead or indication that we could negotiate with whoever took you, but it was just a single sentence: '_An eye for an eye makes both of us blind.'_ He signed it with his initials, and I knew . . . even before the handwriting analysts confirmed it, I knew. But it didn't matter. He vanished into thin air, and all our leads dried up. You were just _gone._ And eventually, so much time had passed, we thought you must be. . . ." He trailed off, unable to vocalize the thought.

There was something familiar about the story, even though she knew she had never heard it before. The more she chased the feeling, the further it ran.

"So, for three years, I've been his prisoner?" she finally managed to ask.

Tears running openly down his cheeks now, Race nodded. He squeezed her hand tightly. "As far as we know."

Her father was watching her closely, trying to gauge her reaction, but Jessie was numb. She had hoped that knowing more about her missing time would help in at least some small way, but it hadn't. All she could feel was the weight of the empty space in her memory that irreversibly divided her into two people: the girl she used to be, and the stranger she was now.


	5. Homecoming

**A/N: **So it only took me like three months to write this chapter . . . I wish I could say it was impressively long or somehow special, but really, it was just incredibly difficult to create something I was happy with. Thank you to everyone who has read this story and offered me motivation to keep going! Your kind words really do work wonders!

_Chapter 5_

_Homecoming_

Race pulled the car door shut, fastened his seat belt, and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, the last of his energy draining away. He was supposed to meet Estella at the airport, but suddenly the very thought of turning the key in the ignition felt overwhelmingly exhausting. It was all too much. He had been waiting for this day for so long, and now that it was here, he wanted nothing more than to press pause on the world and try to make sense of a situation for which there was no rhyme or reason.

He was terrified. Benton and the boys couldn't see it, but he was every bit as scared as he was happy. His fear only increased every time he looked at Jessie - her reactions, her silence, and her withdrawal all told of horrors that he didn't even want to consider, even if she couldn't remember them yet. Of course he had been faced with thoughts of what Sampson might have put her through often enough through the years, but through them all it had been only that: a _might_. A _maybe_. Something indefinable and indefinite. But seeing her now, he couldn't lie to himself enough to believe that she was fine.

He pounded his fist against the steering wheel and growled. "_Damn you, Sampson_!" he shouted. "Damn you to hell!"

Tommy Sampson had once been his friend, but even in those days Race had seen the darkness in him. He had written it off as a typical reaction to the things they saw as agents. At first it was only little things: getting too drunk too often, spouting off about the glory of bloodshed and violence, getting a little too aggressive when he wasn't able to get things the way he wanted them.

From there it had only escalated. On what should have been a fairly standard equipment retrieval operation, Race had been put on surveillance while Sampson was on infiltration. It was a no-contact mission: they were told explicitly that they were not to engage with anyone unless it was unavoidable self-defense. From a maintenance awning high above the ground of the warehouse, Race had watched Sampson attack the half-asleep guard in front of the door. The man hadn't so much as raised his weapon before Sampson was on him, beating him viciously, continuing his assault even once the guard lay unconscious on the floor. Race had been powerless to stop him without alerting every other enemy agent in the area. When he was done beating the guard almost to death, Sampson had stopped, looked up to where he knew Race was hiding, and flashed him a dangerous grin before nonchalantly carrying on with the mission. That was the first time he had seen that Sampson's blackness had only been magnified by their line of work, that he was twisted of his own accord.

He filed a report as soon as they were back at headquarters, but it didn't go far with Race as the only witness. They didn't work together much after that, but there was always a thinly-veiled tension between them, a mutual awareness of what had actually happened that night in the warehouse. It was a year later that Sampson's extracurricular criminal activities were discovered, that he fled the country with his son only to be tracked down by Race's team. Almost exactly a year after Race filed the report that would have gotten Sampson kicked out of the agency, he fired the bullet meant for his former friend only to hit his son instead. He remembered Sampson's screams of rage as the agents hauled him away, his hysterical vow of vengeance echoing through the darkness. To this day, Race still woke up sweating in the middle of the night, picturing the look of unrestrained madness in his eyes. The moment that this whole awful cycle of events had been set in motion.

He knew that Sampson was capable of doing unspeakable things to Jessie – that he almost certainly had. The thought filled him with a rage that was almost physically painful. He had never genuinely wanted to cause pain and torment to another human being until now.

Thomas Sampson was going to die. And Race would not rest until his hands had drained the last ounce of life from the man's body.

* * *

Augusta International Airport was not as impressive as its name might imply. The word "international" suggested a sprawling, bustling metropolis filled with gateways to faraway destinations. From what Estella could tell, the most exotic location one could access from this tiny, rundown cube of a building was Canada. And it would probably take less time to just drive there.

Not for the first time, Estella cursed the remote lives her family chose to lead; finding transportation that would spontaneously and quickly deliver her from the depths of a South American jungle to a small coastal town in Maine had been next to impossible, but she was nothing if not tenacious. As soon as she hung up the phone with Race, she had commandeered a site vehicle and taken off for the nearest branch of civilization at dangerous speeds. She had given almost no explanation of her plans, no timeframe for her return, and had left the grant-funded vehicle - one of only two on site - parked at the airport to rack up steep parking fees. Dozens of her team's confused phone calls had been sent directly to voicemail.

She had been lucky enough to strong arm her way onto a flight departing for America only an hour after her arrival in the city, persistently harassing the ticket attendants with vague explanations of an "international emergency" until they were either so alarmed or so annoyed that they gave her a reserve seat on the flight. From there she had endured transfer after transfer, hopping from LA to Omaha to Portland, where she finally boarding a puddle jumper to Augusta that had circled over the ground for upwards of an hour because the snowstorm made it impossible to land. She touched down just over twelve hours after hanging up on Race in the jungle - which was honestly a miracle, but it felt to her like days.

At long last, she stood in the lobby of the Augusta airport, watching through the large front window for Race, clutching her purse and cell phone - the only items she had thought to bring with her in her haste - and shivering in the thin, dirt-encrusted jungle attire she had not thought to change out of before leaving. People kept casting her sidelong glances, and with every one she felt like she was closer to snapping and screaming at everyone. She knew she had to look half-crazed, but yelling or throttling someone sounded remarkably cathartic somehow. Her patience had worn out several flights back, and her temper had a well-deserved reputation.

The numbness she felt when Race first called to tell her the news had still not entirely faded, but she was at least able to think now. Whether that was a blessing or a curse, she honestly couldn't say. She kept envisioning her daughter's face, only to have the image slip away before she could completely lock onto it. It was all so surreal. They had all but accepted that their daughter was dead, and now she was back from the grave.

"Damn it, Race, where are you?" she whispered to herself, continuing to pace with long strides as she watched for a Quest van.

It was almost fifteen minutes of torturous waiting before a large blue van with a white Q painted on the side pulled to a stop in front of her. Race stepped out from the driver's side as she headed outside to meet him, looking no better than Estella imagined she did. His eyes were bloodshot and underlined with dark circles, and his hair was a mess from all the times he had run his hands through it - an old nervous habit of his. He had never looked older than he did in that moment.

Estella didn't know what to feel at the sight of him. The things they had said to each other since Jessie's disappearance made the arguments that prompted their divorce years before look minor. The grief of losing the most important thing in their lives had eaten them both alive, and they had frequently turned their displaced anger on each other. Part of her still felt like hitting him for things said the last time they had been together, but her emotions were jumbled and raw and before she knew it, she was hugging him tightly, noting dimly that he was clinging to her every bit as desperately as she was to him.

"Sorry I'm late, the roads are hell," he said gently as they broke apart. "Jesus, Stel, you're freezing!"

"I was a little preoccupied on my way here," she snapped, more harshly than she had intended.

He shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her, ignoring her attempts to protest his chivalry and wrapping it around her shoulders himself.

"Oh, Race, is this real?" She was desperately waiting for confirmation.

"I swear," he said, meeting her eyes intently. "She's at the compound right now."

"How is she?"

Race ran his hand through his hair again as they climbed into the car and he revved the engine. "Withdrawn and in shock. Like I said before, she really doesn't remember anything."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nope. He dropped her in a hotel room and left a fucking _letter_ explaining what he did. Says he wiped her memory to keep us from finding him."

Estella clenched her jaw, her eyes hard as stone. "That won't be enough to save him."

They shared a moment of silent camaraderie, comforted by the knowledge that their ideas of justice matched up so well.

"Is she . . . is she hurt?" Estella wasn't sure she wanted the answer to this question, but she knew it would eat away at her until she asked.

"She's pale and really thin, but I didn't notice anything else. . . ."

"But that doesn't really mean much," Estella finished the thought Race hesitated at.

"No."

The rest of the drive passed by in silence, neither of them knowing what else to say, each weighed down by fears they did not want to speak for fear of making them into realities. Race fiddled with the radio at first, trying to find something suitable to fill the silence, but after scanning through pop and hip hop songs for five minutes he turned it off with unnecessary force and they listened once more to the sound of the highway wind. Estella saw that he had not been exaggerating: the roads really _were_ hell. It was midmorning by the time they pulled up in front of the compound.

Neither of them moved for several seconds after the engine died away. Estella stared silently out the window. "I'm scared, Race," she whispered finally.

Haltingly, as if he expecting a rebuke, he reached across the car and squeezed her hand. "I am, too." They were words of companionship, of shared burden, but not of comfort. He had no idea how to comfort her without falling into trite statements that he wasn't sure yet if he believed.

She looked at him, her eyes for once unguarded, filled with all the same conflicting thoughts that were eating holes in the pit of his stomach. Nodding, she broke the stillness and opened the door before she could stop herself again. "All right, then."

Benton greeted them at the door. "Estella," he said, smiling warmly. "I'm glad you made it safely."

"Thank you, Benton, it's good to see you again," she returned sincerely. The two had become good friends over the years, and he had been a great help to her when Race hadn't been capable of it.

"Do you have any luggage I can grab for you?"

"Only what I'm carrying right now." She gestured at the purse hanging from her shoulder.

"Of course."

"Jessie's in my room," Race directed, casting a look at Benton, who nodded in confirmation. He gave his ex-wife's shoulder a reassuring squeeze and encouraged gently, "Go see her. I'll wait out here, give you guys some time."

"Thank you," she told him, grateful for the warmth of his presence.

Without another look at them, she headed straight for Race's quarters. She could hear Jonny and Hadji talking softly in the kitchen, but she didn't stop to greet them; she stopped for nothing until she found herself standing outside Race's door. Allowing herself only a moment's pause, she knocked quickly before her nerves could get the best of her.

It was almost a full minute before she got a response, each second dragging on with agonizing slowness, part of her still expecting this to all be some kind of mass hallucination. At long last, Estella heard soft footsteps and when the door opened slowly she found herself staring into a pair of familiar green eyes.

"Jessie!" she cried, launching herself at the girl and pulling her into an embrace. "Oh, god . . . you're really here . . ."

Jessie didn't say anything back, but after a long moment, Estella could feel her daughter's arms tighten around her. After a moment, she pulled back and looked her over. Race had been right - she was very pale and Estella could feel the angles of her bones much more sharply than she should have been able to. Her hair hung damp around her face, looking like she had just gotten out of the shower.

Jessie seemed uncomfortable, folding her arms across her chest and staring at the ground. Estella was still holding her by her shoulders. Reaching up, she cupped Jessie's face in her hand, and slowly the girl looked up and met her eyes. "You are so beautiful," Estella whispered with awe, unshed tears roughening her voice. "You're so grown up."

"That's what people keep telling me," Jessie replied softly, breaking eye contact once again.

"Oh, Jessie, I can't imagine what you must be feeling . . . I know this is all so much to take in," Estella began to ramble. "I want to help you however I can, sweetheart. I've missed you _so_ much, and I never thought this day would come! Seeing you standing here right now is a miracle to me."

Stiffening suddenly, Jessie nodded rigidly and shrugged her way out of her mother's grip, pacing backward toward the window. Unsure of what she had done wrong, Estella slowly followed her into the room.

"Jess?" she asked hesitantly. "Did I say something?"

"No," Jessie replied immediately. "I . . . I don't know."

"What is it, honey? What can I do?"

"Nothing."

Estella placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are you sure?"

"I don't _know_, Mom!" Jessie burst out suddenly, causing Estella to jump. "I don't know what to do or what to say or how to act! I just woke up yesterday and looked in the mirror and discovered that apparently I'm three years older than I was two days ago! And my family spent all that time thinking I was dead, and all the people I love keep telling me what a miracle it is that I'm home and that they've missed me, and I know you all want me to say it back, but I _can't_! Because to me it doesn't feel like time has passed at all and I don't know what to _do_ about that!"

Jessie seemed every bit as surprised by her outburst as Estella looked. Just as quickly as the heat had flooded through her, it faded, leaving her shaky and exhausted as she sank back down onto the bed. "I don't know what to do," she repeated quietly, sounding hopelessly lost.

Snapping out of her shock, Estella moved forward and sat down beside her daughter slowly. "Of course you don't," she acknowledged softly. "I'm sorry, Jessie, you're right. You don't need to know what to say."

"Don't I?" Jessie returned, sounding defeated. "I know you all want me to hug you and tell you how much I've missed you, but I don't know how to do that. I just feel so numb."

"Oh, honey," Estella whispered around the painful lump forming in her throat, slowly wrapping her arm around the girl's shoulder. She was relieved when Jessie didn't push her away. "All I want is for you to be okay."

Jessie continued as though her mother hadn't spoken. "I know that Jonny and Hadji and Dr. Quest are all out there waiting, and I can't bear the thought of facing them yet, listening to them celebrate something that still feels like a dream to me. I'm just going to disappoint everyone."

"Hey," Estella said seriously, moving so that Jessie had to meet her gaze. "You couldn't disappoint any of us even if you were actively _trying_, do you understand? We love you, and _nothing_ is going to change that."

Avoiding a direct answer, Jessie closed her eyes and leaned her head against her mother's shoulder. "I just want to hide in here a while longer."

"Then that's what we'll do," Estella replied resolutely, as though declaring an executive decision at a board meeting. Surprised, Jessie glanced up at her mother. "We'll sit here until you decide you're ready for anything else."

True to her word, she sat there silently holding Jessie until the girl turned her suspicious look away and settled back to staring out the window, allowing the unspoken questions and worries that hovered in the air to roll out like the tide.

* * *

Over an hour later, Estella emerged from the hallway into the kitchen, causing the anxiously waiting men to snap quickly to attention.

"Well?" Race asked tersely, looking like he had been pacing the length of the kitchen ever since getting home.

Even though she looked weary and pained, Estella offered a small, genuine smile. "If you all can promise to not create too huge a fuss, she would like to come see everyone."

Race let out a huge sigh of relief as Jonny sprang up hopefully at the kitchen table. "Really?" the boy asked almost disbelievingly.

Estella smiled at him. "Really, Jonny. But I do mean it about not making a fuss; she's overwhelmed and doesn't know how to react when people make a big deal about it. To her, it still feels like two days have passed. Be happy, be welcoming, but be calm. A huge ordeal is going to cause more harm than good at this point, trust me."

"Of course, Estella," Hadji promised, speaking for all of them as Jonny nodded, too wound up for words.

"All right." Estella disappeared back down the hall and for a few moments of anxious silence, the rest of the family stared at the empty doorway, unmoving. Estella reappeared a minute later, trailed by a slightly shorter figure.

Jessie stepped hesitantly into the kitchen, taking a long second before she looked up to meet their eyes. She was clearly anxious, her arms folded tightly across herself, standing stiffly and very close to Estella. Had she turned around and ran from the room, it would not have taken any of them by surprise.

"Hi," she said quietly, not knowing what else to add.

Dr. Quest broke the reverie first, stepping forward with an effortlessly warm smile and an extended hand. "Jessie," he said gently. He sounded casual, but he was positively beaming.

She returned his smile haltingly and reached out her hand in return, still too standoffish to move forward and hug him. He squeezed her hand encouragingly, trying to put into that simple touch all of the affection that filled his heart at the sight of her standing there.

"It is _so_ incredibly good to see you," he said, feeling like he had certainly mastered the art of the understatement. She nodded and seemed to relax slightly.

Hadji moved forward next, exuding an air of contagious calmness that only he could manage. The two stared at each other for a long moment before Hadji spoke.

"When I was very young and living in Bangalore with Pasha, he used to speak to me of his philosophies as I would fall asleep."

Jessie tilted her head quizzically, clearly surprised by the direction their reunion was taking. Hadji smiled at her confusion as he continued. "He liked to tell me that to truly love someone meant permanently giving them a piece of your soul, and should you lose that person, your soul would never really be whole again. You can adapt, you can move on, but part of your very essence will always be gone." He laughed suddenly. "He told me that if I doubted him, I could go get '_one of those western x-ray machines_' to prove it to me."

Jessie smiled, this time without reservation.

"I know now what he meant. This is the first time I have been complete in a very long time, my sister." Hadji smiled at her, his eyes glassy. Jessie nodded erratically and awkwardly stepped forward to hug him briefly before turning her gaze to the final person in the room.

Jonny had been hanging in the background, frozen, but at last he stepped forward, staring at her with a look of open wonderment. The two of them stood several feet apart staring at each other silently for what felt like a small eternity.

"Wow, Quest. You grew up," Jessie finally attempted to quip, but the hesitant shakiness of her voice made it fall flat.

A slow, sideways smile spread across Jonny's face. "I was always telling you how good I'd look once that whole 'puberty' thing was done with." His voice shook slightly, just like hers, but plenty of his old confidence was there.

It was the most ridiculous and natural thing anyone had said to her since she got home - a simple joke without any wariness or worry or tension. After a beat, she couldn't help but bark out a laugh of surprised relief, oblivious to the shocked look her parents exchanged.

"If you had _ever_ said that, I would never have let you live it down," she returned, offering him a small smile in return. For a split second, the world faded away and she was able to forget all the horror of the last 24 hours; it was just her and Jonny, teasing each other the way they always had.

"Denial will get you _nowhere_, Bannon." His smile faded a bit, but their exchange had heartened him, and he crossed the distance between them to hug her.

He was gentle at first, but Jessie held him tightly, somehow not as nervous around him as she had been around everyone else. There was something familiar and comforting about her best friend, something that eased her fears in a way nothing else had been able to. He returned her hug enthusiastically.

"I'm never letting you go again, Jess," he whispered so that only she could hear, all jest gone from his tone. "I swear it."

She just nodded and hugged him tighter. "Good."


End file.
